My parents are moving out of my childhood home, so I went to though my old stuff including my old PC games. It would be a shame to just throw them all away if someone out there might want them. Most of the games are loose disks, or just the disk with the official cd case. Do you guys think anyone would want any of these games, if it would be worth trying to sell online, etc?
Pajama Sam 1
Pajama Sam 2
Pajama Sam 3
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Zoombinis Logical Journey
Oregon Trail II
Warcraft III + expansion pack The Frozen Throne
Dungeon Siege
Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland
Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds + expansion pack The Clone Campaigns
Star Wars: X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries
Zoo Tycoon
Zoo Tycoon: Marine Mania
Seaworld Tycoon
Zoo Tycoon 2
Myst
Riven: The Sequel to Myst
Myst III: Exile
Myst IV: Revelations (with box)
Myst V: End of Ages (with box)
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst + expansion pack The Path of the Shell
I think your odds of making any meaningful money without the box and peripherals are slim, but if you just want to get them into an appreciative home, you might try donating them to a charity like Goodwill, or ask on forums about old games or something.
Is Goodwill really a good place for people to find old computer games? I went there for the first time today to drop off some books and they just had a small shelf for game-related stuff and it was mostly just XBox sports games. And getting these old Windows 95 games to run on modern computers is a task in itself.
Look them each up on eBay. See what they go for. Anything that doesn’t have broad digital distribution will sell for at least a few bucks. If you have the complete packaging and documentation, even better.
Looking at that list, you’re probably gonna be chucking (or giving away) most or all of them, just at a glance, though.
I don’t know that there’s any solid place to get rid of disc-only games from decades ago. But I think that sort of charity shop/fleamarket/antique shop sort of eclectic collection is probably going to be as close as you get. Worth trying, anyway.
I chucked almost all the cardboard boxes but held on to some core CDs and DVDs. Here’s my whole physical collection now. It might not survive the next move, who knows.
Since CD-ROM games are probably in limited demand, you might consider seeing if the Video Game History Foundation has interest in any of them if you’re not able to get rid of them otherwise.
I’d agree with @malkav11 and @justaguy2. To make them worth anything requires one of two conditions: to have the box, manual, etc, or to be unavailable digitally.
For example my boxed copy of Battle for Middle Earth 2, in nearly mint condition. It checks both boxes. But things broadly available on Steam, GOG, etc have almost zero value without everything it came with.
Old PC jewel case games usually end up in the CD and DVD section mixed in with the music and movies, not the display case. It’s been a few years since I saw a lot of them however.
If you have the original box and manuals you could try Half Price Books. They had a section for old rarities the last few times I was there, though it’s also been a few years.
I did this a few years ago, and I think it was 2 or 3 boxes (just over 400) games I put on craigslist, and I got $50 bucks for all. I didn’t even try to list them all, just took pics so their titles could be seen. The guy who bought them was late-teens/early twenties, and seemed pretty excited to get them, so it made me feel pretty good that they’d still be used/enjoyed.
I’ve got a bunch of big boxes, manuals and CDs. They don’t take up too much space (I’ve taken the cardboard inserts out of the big boxes and folded them down), so I’ll hold onto them indefinitely. Who knows, in 50 years they might be something special.
It really is dependent on the game and the condition, same as any collector-worthy items in gaming. Definitely worth your time to at least pass them along to someone who’s interested rather than throwing them out. Every day more and more of these things are being thrown away and someone is out there looking for that thing you’re chucking.
I had tons of game CDs/DVDs here. A year or so ago I did a big cleanup in my collection, removing all games for which I had digital copies (though I did keep a few of those for sentimental value) and in the end I had this big bag with lots of stuff. I wondered if I could find somewhere to drop those, found nothing, and ended up throwing it all in the trash. I don’t really regret it, though I’d have preferred to give them to someone who would appreciate them.
